


Play On

by Marsalias



Series: Grandfather Clocks [8]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character conflict, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Lost Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23704834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: Danny wants to introduce Dani to someone...
Series: Grandfather Clocks [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706959
Comments: 14
Kudos: 304





	Play On

Few ghosts ever went to Elmerton.

It was just across the river from Amity Park, and reality was thin there, too, so of course _some_ ghosts still wound up there, but not as many as one would expect. There were several reasons for this. Ease of access, resources, Phantom's presence and abilty to catch most ghosts before they got out of Amity Park, more interesting places elsewhere, etcetera, etcetera.

But at this moment, that didn't matter. There was a ghost there, now, menacing the populace. The populace here, being much less used to ghosts, was easier to menace, even for a ghost as weak as this.

"Beware!" shouted the ghost waggling his blue fingers.

The girl in the alley sighed, looking out at the scene. She had come here to stock up for her world tour somewhere her cousin wouldn't find her. Even a newborn like her knew she needed supplies, though that was, in part, thanks to borrowed memories.

She sighed again. The Box Ghost was mostly harmless. But. Emphasis on _mostly._ She was too much like her cousin.

With a twist of thought and a flash of light, she stopped being a human girl, and started to be a ghost. She flew up out of the alley.

"Hey, Boxy!" she shouted, charging an ectoblast.

Another ectoblast, not hers, knocked the ghost out of the sky, and was quickly followed up by the blue-white capture beam of a Fenton Thermos. The girl cringed. Heck.

It was her cousin.

"Dani!" he exclaimed, flitting around her in a manner that put her in mind of a large, anxious hummingbird. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. It was only the Box Ghost."

"I know. Just, you know." He hugged her. She could feel her core stabilize slightly, and started to pick up his emotions. "I missed you so much. I looked all over for you."

She hugged him back. She had missed him, too, but-

"You know why I left." Her core swirled with emotions and feelings she could not quite verbalize.

"You want to be your own person, I get it." He pulled back slightly so that he could smile down at her. "You know, if you ever wanted me to... I would. You're family."

"Yeah, just... I'm not ready for that." She didn't think Danny was ready for what she was offering, either. Not that he wouldn't do it in a moment, for her, but... She didn't want to make him.

Danny nodded. "It's just that I'm worried about you being on your own, with no backup." He brightened. "That's why I want you to meet someone!"

Dani frowned. "Who?"

"A friend of mine."

Not Jazz, then. But she'd already met Sam and Tucker, and she didn't think Danny had any other friends.

That was kind of sad, actually...

Maybe it was someone she didn't remember. She didn't have all of Danny's memories, after all. Just a whole lot of them.

"Okay, okay, fine, sure."

Danny beamed. "Great!" He took her hand and pulled her back towards Amity Park.

They didn't talk much after that, content with sharing nebulous emotions, until they started to near Fentonworks.

"Hey, this friend isn't, like, your parents or something, are they?"

"What? No. I mean, if you do want to meet them-"

"No," said Dani, hastily. "I'm good."

"They are your parents, too."

"Don't want to deal with it. But I would like to know where we're going."

"Oh, yeah, I guess this would look weird. My friend, he lives in the Ghost Zone."

Dani frowned. "Poindexter?"

Danny giggled. "No, but I could introduce you to him, too, if you want."

"No, I'm good."

They entered Fentonworks through Danny's bedroom window, and crept down through the house to the lab. Danny opened the portal doors, and they were in the Ghost Zone.

Dani had been there before, with Vlad, but not for long, and not often. Most of her memories of the place were Danny's. Traveling through it like this, going deep and navigating through odd little wrinkles of spacetime, was so much better.

Right up until she caught sight of their destination.

Long Now.

She stopped.

"What's wrong?" asked Danny. "Are you okay? Are you- Is it okay that you flew all the way here?"

"I'm fine," said Dani. "I'm just... surprised."

Danny grinned. "It's great, isn't it?"

"Sure," said Dani.

Dani had memories of Clockwork, but they were difficult for her. They were all tangled up and cofused with memories Danny had gotten from that other guy, and they hurt.

Beyond that...

Dani knew Danny trusted Clockwork. She didn't. For a lot of reasons.

She should probably turn back. Putting herself further under the power of some creepy time dude was not on her to-do list.

On the other hand, bailing would definitely upset Danny, and what better chance would she get to confront the guy? If he was as shady as she suspected, she didn't want Danny anywhere near him.

She followed Danny.

They flew down to hover in front of the huge double doors, which opened inward, completely silently. Danny gave her a delighted grin, and flew in.

She sighed, and followed. Shouldn't Danny be the more world-weary and wary one? Dani had just been born earlier this year, after all. But, no, Danny was the one trusting the eldritch time monster. If the two of them weren't pretty eldritch themselves, Dani would be even more concerned.

The inside of the building was just as creepy as the outside. Less than a second in, and the ticking was already driving her crazy. It was just so excessive, and the architecture was off, even for the Ghost Zone. Were all the gears really necessary?

"Clockwork!" exclaimed Danny, far too happily. He dive-bombed the purple-cloaked ghost floating at the other end of the room.

Dani hung back and watched. Danny twined around Clockwork, his tail twisted tightly around the corner of Clockwork's cloak. Clockwork smiled down at Danny indulgently, with exactly the same expression Vlad reserved for Maddie the cat.

It made Dani feel sick. She crossed her arms over her chest, and swallowed hard.

... No. This wasn't the right stance. She'd never beat Clockwork in a fight, after all. She would melt long before she could even leave a mark on him. No. To beat him, she'd need to be sneaky, figure out what he wanted, and use that. Like Vlad had taught her. Gross.

She relaxed her arms, and hunched her shoulders, trying to appear shy, rather than repulsed, when Clockwork patted Danny on the head.

Danny extracted himself, and flew back to Dani. "Dani, this is Clockwork," he said, putting one hand on her shoulder. "Clockwork, this is Dani. Dani, I don't know if you know this already, but Clockwork's helped me out of a few really bad situations, and he lets me hang out here, sometimes. Also, he gives me history lessons, but that's more of a drawback, you know," Danny finished, jokingly.

"As it is for Daniel," said Clockwork, smoothly, his voice deep and rich, "you are welcome here, whenever you should wish to come."

"Thanks," said Dani, stiffly. It would be natural to be a little reserved at a first meeting, anyway, right? Maybe she should have worked harder at her interpersonal skills, after all.

"Hey," said Danny, voice pitched low and encouraging, "you don't have to be shy. Clockwork is really cool."

Dani wrinkled her nose. She wasn't being shy. She was being cautious.

If she was remembering right, people usually asked questions about each other after they were introduced for the first time. She licked her lower lip. "So, he just lets you hang out here? Just like that?"

Danny glanced at Clockwork, and Dani got the impression that Danny thought she was being rude, somehow. "Well, I help him with some stuff, I guess, but," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I feel like we, um, enjoy each others' company?"

Chores. Right. Like what Vlad made her do. Like 'go get Daniel's mid-morph DNA.' Jeez, Clockwork even used their full names like Vlad did. The parallels were never ending.

"I do indeed." Clockwork smiled faintly, revealing a slight gap between his two front teeth. He turned his gaze to Dani, the smile fading to be replaced with a much more neutral expression. "You don't approve."

"What?" said Danny, looking back and forth between the two of them. "What do you mean? Don't approve of what?"

Clockwork raised an eyebrow. Crud. He already knew.

She should have known better than to try to out-sneak someone who was like Vlad, but could also control time. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid.

"He's using you," said Dani, floating closer to Danny, putting herself slightly between him and Clockwork.

"I- What?"

"He's _using_ you. He 'helped' you, but didn't he cause the whole thing in the first place?" Even if her borrowed memories of the incidents weren't clear, she had definitely gotten that impression. "And now he's making you do stuff?" She glared at Clockwork. "You're just like Vlad!" Ectoplasm shimmered and cracked around her hands.

"Dani," said Danny, "I don't..." He glanced at Clockwork. "He really helped me. The situation is kind of complicated."

She glared up at Danny. "Do you even see how you're acting around him? It's like mind control or something!"

Danny furrowed his eyebrows and sucked in his lips. "That's _not_ what's going on. It's... Hng... Oh my gosh, this is sort of embarrassing, actually."

"Are you blushing?"

" _... Maybe._ "

This had really gone too far.

"Clockwork, I'm sorry, I think, um, I think I should talk to Dani for a bit, probably should have talked to her before, sorry." Danny tugged her back, away from Clockwork.

"Take your time," murmured Clockwork.

Self-satisfied _jerk..._

Danny pulled her into a corner, and turned her around. "Dani," he said, "Clockwork isn't mind controlling me, and what happened with-" he visibly paled, "-with Dan, it wasn't his fault. It probably would have been worse if he didn't do anything."

"Okay, then explain," demanded Dani, glancing back to where Clockwork floated.

"I will, I will, calm down, please. Clockwork is... He's got a contract with the Observants."

"And the Observants are?"

"One-eyed jerks. They've got a thing against half-ghosts. But the contract, it's basically, well," he lowered his voice again, "slavery. But magic. He doesn't have a choice but to do what they want. He managed to find a loophole for me. For us, really. But... Yeah."

"Fine. And the other thing?"

"Uhm." Danny fidgeted. "It's a thing that ghosts our age do sometimes, I guess? When we get attached to, you know, an adult ghost. I asked Dora about it, and it is a real thing. Not... Not everyone is like Vlad, Dani. I know he lied, but some people can do and say the same things and have them be the truth."

"It isn't about that." But was it? Was she really that hung up on Vlad?

"Okay," said Danny, raising his hands. "You don't have to stay here, or come here, if you don't want. I just thought that it might be a good thing if you had somewhere safe to go when you need help."

... And now Dani felt bad. Danny was trying to help her, and she was being ungrateful.

That didn't mean she was _wrong_ about Clockwork.

"I'm not asking you to immediately be best friends with Clockwork, but maybe give him a chance? We've got to make a lot of snap decisions in our lives, but this doesn't have to be one of them."

Dani pursed her lips.

"Fine," she said.


End file.
